02 October 2008
Scorsese And De Niro Set To Reteam
Film about Jimmy Hoffa's alleged killer
Source: Variety

Now this is more like it. With all due respect to animated movies, we’ve been writing about talking bears and pandas all morning and were crying out for something with a bit of substance.

And movie news doesn’t come much more substantial than the reteaming of Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, does it?

The dream team – the guys who made (deep breath) Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The King Of Comedy, New York, New York, Cape Fear, Goodfellas and Casino together – haven’t worked together since 1995. Since then, there have been flirtations – most notably on The Winter Of Frankie Machine (which De Niro is now set to make with Michael Mann) – but nothing concrete.

But now, the duo look set to work together again on the Paramount crime flick, I Heard You Paint Houses. Huzzah, hurrah, hurray!

The movie will be based on a book by Charles Brandt, a writer who befriended an Irish hitman called Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran (told you he was Irish) before he died in 2004. Sheeran confessed a number of killings to Brandt including, so it’s claimed, the dismemberment of the famous missing Teamster boss, Jimmy Hoffa.

But Sheeran was also reported to have killed around 25 people while working for the Mob (the book’s title is taken from hitman slang for blood splatter on walls).

Sounds like typical Scorsese/De Niro territory to us, but we’re sure that the duo can find something new to mine here.

It’s early days yet – De Niro has signed on as Sheeran, but Scorsese has just brought on Steven Zaillian to adapt the book into a screenplay. So it could be a couple of years before anything happens with this – but we’re hopeful.

Scorsese has, of course, forged a fruitful working relationship with Leonardo DiCaprio over the last few years (four movies and counting!), but the sparks he creates in tandem with De Niro are special. They’re more than special – they’re cinema history, and we can’t wait to see those sparks fly again.

Scorsese will produce the movie, along with De Niro and his producing partner, Jane Rosenthal.

Chris Hewitt

I will move this topic to the Crime movies and series forum but thought the news was so huge it deserved to be posted here.

:D

Great story....





De Niro and Scorsese reunite for mob film
Director and star find themselves back in familiar territory with a film about the alleged assassin of Jimmy Hoffa
Ben Child guardian.co.uk, Thursday October 02 2008 10:47


De Niro and Scorsese on the set of Taxi Driver. Photograph: Kobal

Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese are to reunite on the mobster drama I Heard You Paint Houses, about the assassin believed to have killed union leader Jimmy Hoffa.

Scorsese will direct, with De Niro playing the main character, mob hitman Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran. The film is being adapted from Charles Brandt's book, which the latter wrote after befriending Sheeran shortly before his death in 2003. Brandt claims Sheeran confessed to the killing and dismemberment of Hoffa, head of the Teamsters labour union, on the orders of mob boss Russell Bufalino.

The Oscar-winning screenwriter Steve Zaillian, who wrote Schindler's List and the recent American Gangster, will adapt the book for the big screen. The film will mark the ninth occasion on which De Niro and Scorsese have worked together, following Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, New York New York, Raging Bull, The King Of Comedy, Goodfellas, Cape Fear and Casino. Its title is a reference to mob slang referring to the bloody mess left behind following gangland killings.

Hoffa was a major figure in the history of US unions before his death in 1975. His mob connections caused him to earn the enmity of both presidents John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson, and he was eventually convicted of attempted bribery of a grand juror and jailed for 15 years in 1964.

Brandt's book on the union leader's killing claims Sheeran, who is believed to have killed at least 25 people, used his friendship with Hoffa to lure him to a bogus meeting and drive him to a house in northwestern Detroit, where he shot him twice before fleeing. The body was said to be cremated within an hour of the killing.

Shutter Island, an adaptation of the Dennis Lehane novel starring Leonardo DiCaprio, will be the next Scorsese film to hit UK cinemas, while De Niro's team-up with Al Pacino, Righteous Kill, arrived on screens here last weekend. The actor also recently completed work on the Kirk Jones-directed Everybody's Fine, co-starring Sam Rockwell, Kate Beckinsale and Drew Barrymore.

HURRA!!! :D

http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/10/01/scorse...u-paint-houses/

Joe Pesci as Hoffa? :D

How realistic to you guys think Sheehan's stories were?

Difficult to say but why should you lie to a friend when you're dying? I think he did know what happenned to hoffa and many other murders...

What do you think?

Former soldiers are the best killers...

I think we will never know who killed Hoffa for sure, it's too late to find out now I believe. It was probably guys close to him, but not Sheehan. They had too many of their own guys to use to bring him in. I wonder how many guys have gotten book deals out of claiming they killled Hoffa, or knew of where he was buried, or how he got killed. I think Sheehan may be 3rd one in past 12 years. There was the guy who claimed Hoffa was buried in Football stadium endzone, I think that was Greek guy.


I wonder if Dinero and Scorsese can still pull it off. Dinero has been on a downslide role-wise, maybe this is what he needs.

The FBI is to this day convinced that Sheeran and the Andretta brothers were involved...

Sheeran did these interviews with Brandt for Hoffa's family..

Speaking of his family ! :D
http://www.zimbio.com/William+James+Hoffa+Jr

It's a shame :(
I look at it as a Scorsese trilogy Goodfellas/Casino and this one. It's about American history not just a mob movie!

can wait

Why not?

According to the book from Gallo's greek bodyguard Russell Bufalino and Sheeran were very close, Joe Pistone confirmed this. On the night of Gallo's murder they had an argument with him in the copa. An eyewitness of the shooting said it was Sheeran.

Death of a Maverick Mafioso

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,944461,00.html

http://www.spectrepublishing.com/Jimmy_Hof...ery_Solved.html

I don't think so. Most soldiers are law abiding, even the ones who do most killing during a war want nothing to do with killing anyone once they are home. The occasional psycho is the exception, and they won't fit in with mob. The best killers for mafia or any other gang are/were guys who grew up in awful conditions, and in neighborhoods full of guys who taught them that there is nothing wrong with it. For example, guys who grew up during depression, went to reform schools ---usually for bullshit crimes-spent time in jail, and hung out with gangsters. Best killers are guys who don't go nuts and want to kill over and over, or who have some stability to their life. A physcho will fuck up. Also I don't buy into this 'Hitman for hire" stuff. Mob has own killers, why pay some nut to do it? Murder inc. was not as big an operation as it is made to be, and their ties to Anastasia were not that close. Anastasia had own killers, he had no need to hire guys. In fact he got killed cause his own guys were killers, and he kept being abusive with them. Not a smart boss, to say the least. Bill Bonano, who got where he was caus eof his father, is a clueless guy. He wrote in one book or interview about Carlo Gambino being a coward. He said one time Anastasia smacked Gambino, a captain at time, and Gambino just smiled weakly. Now, WTF did Billy boy think was going through Gambino's mind at time?
"When time is right, I kill this guy" is what. And he did. And If I got off topic sorry, I may be a
physcho myself. I'm just not sure how to spell it! ( Physcho? Phscycho? Psycho? :blink: )

Oh yeah, soldiers--no, only in war as a rule.

Carlo Gambino pulled a Benny from the movie Sleepers on Anastasia then :D

I'm not saying all former soldiers are killers but they are trained to do it not many soldiers have heen in a war or killed someone, but in Russia and Serbia for example most underworld powers are former soldiers, police,kgb etc..

And what about Michael Corleone? :D

danmann i think you're very naïve :D
Another example is the Zetas in Mexico...

The best hired killers in the world!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Zetas

Don't EVER call me naive, call me dumb :D


I meant mafia in America, not Mexican, Russian, Columbians, Serbs, etc. I'm not as worldly as you on this international stufff Holly, I'm nai..I mean dumb. :o

That's what I like here, the international stuff.

I think Johnny Roselli was a soldier :D

This is the real mafia in America
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Vesco

Vesco was big, I forgot al about him. Even bigger were some guys I saw on the news some years ago. About 5-8 guys, in business suits, all young, same haircuts, and smiling while in handcuffs were being taken to court. They were American, not ethnic, just some White guys. They stole a billion dollars. They got probation same day in court, and story was not in next days newspaper!

How the fuck do you steal a bilion dollars?

http://www.daylife.com/photo/05y80is7XI3oC

Robert De Niro is in his 60's now? He may be a bit old these days for playing a street level hoodlum

Sheeran was 55 when Hoffa disappeared, Jimmy was in his sixties, Deniro is 65. In a movie age is not that important i think..

btw Jimmy Hoffa was not streetlevel he was the top of OC in the States :D

My thinking was that people at the higher level get others to do their killing rather than do it themselves

Hoffa was a gangster, not a white collar guy...

Hoffa wasn't controlled by the mob he was one of the most important players in the American mafia!

Sam Giancana was also murdered at the same time Hoffa disappeared..

Definatley, but not an outsider, they would use a guy under them.

What do you mean with outsider?

And at least they left him laying around in his kitchen, nice and easy to find. Last thing we need is another missing mobster to give informers book deals. :D "I buried Giancanna in a stadium" By Fulla Chit, or 'I dumped him in Ocean" by by Larson E.




Hollender, did you mean you think there was a connection?

That was quick! I meant a made guy, a soldier, maybe with a captain along, or someone high up to set Hoffa up. Was Sheehan that close to them that he would be an insider?

By the way, I don't consider Brandt (author of Sheehan book) that credible.